Creating Melody

This page is the gateway to all the material that supports Creating Melody.  Navigation begins here.  Use the buttons below to explore the various topics of the course.  Each of these buttons will lead to a page that has links to the sub-topics.  The text is
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This course is aimed at songwriters and instrumentalists who want to create unique melodies.  The class will examine how to create compositions from scales, chords, words and random beginnings.   Melodic development and structure will be explored.  Guideposts that define memorable melodies will be discussed.  The creation of “ear-worms” in music will be explored.  Each day students will work through a detailed analysis of existing work and receive a set of suggested exercises and references for additional study.   Time will be set aside during each class for students to present their own songs and tunes to class for critique.  Questions about how to preserve a new melody through notation and recoding will be addressed.  The ability to read standard musical notation is very helpful but not necessary.  The class will present and make use of the simple and widely used alternative to standard notion: ABC format.

Most of the notation files are presented in both standard notation and ABC notation.  If you give ABC notation a little time, you'll be rewarded with a simple, easy to use, sufficiently accurate and very portable notation system.  Standard notation is certainly a superior system when notating complex music.  However, most traditional musicians have no need for great complexity.   Free software is available to help you write in ABC and convert your score to standard notation.  The software will even produce an audio file of your work.  These two links provide a lot of useful information about ABC notation.  Review these before working through the handouts.

The Website Home of ABC Notation

Easy ABC - A very capable, and free, ABC software package